Est. 2006 The Schreibman

as the sun rose the visitors arrived....first Softa and Papu arrived right after his first bath....

then the big brother arrived and he was ready to hold and kiss his little brother immediately...

i dont think he couldve been any more excited....

and smothered him with kisses and smiles...

asher had spent the night at nana's and poppy's so they brought him...

we put on asher's big brother t shirt

and his little brother finally got to give him his present....wrapped in cars wrapping paper.

boy did little brother know the key to asher's heart...

and it was his very own camera...."open it now please"

poppy with baby brother...

asher in action. he was all over the place taking photos from the minute we took the camera out of the box. a boy after his mothers own heart!

i finally got him into the bed with me for snuggles. he felt so big in my arms after holding the baby the past few hours.

we enjoyed many sweet mommy son moments together, just the two of us...

one of my favorite photos... of my big big boy!

and our very first photo of our family of four!!!!!

mr smushy face

my great aunt estelle (who just turned 89) was insistent that she get to the hospital right after i had the baby...and you bet she was there with bells on loving all over him...

great uncle jay came to visit and snuggle with the bug

our friends laura and shawn came to visit

pinky's with daddy

by the time sunday came to an end we finally decided on a name.

early on we decided that we would name this baby after philip's dad "mike". we werent sure if it would be the middle name or the first name but we knew there would be and "m" in there somewhere...

picking a name for us was brutal. i wont lie....

we had narrowed it down to a few names...milo...mayer...meyer...rhodes...nace...sawyer (but philip hated this) ultimately philip picked the name. mayer means great or he who illuminates. philip felt this wa a strong name that he could grow with as he got older, bigger and stronger. afterall he was not a little baby at almost 9 lbs. once philip mentioned he thought mayer would be a suitable name i explained to him how i had heard "your body is a wonderland" by john mayer when we took him into the nursery and how suiting this name would be for our boy. plus i love john mayers music. i play it on pandora almost all day long. it calms me. the middle name was still to be determined.

philips one request in the final days of my pregnancy was that if we were to have a first name that started with M, that the middle name start with a D. His grandfather's initials were MDS. Sadly his grandfather passed before he was born, but thought this would be a great way to honor him. additionally there are many family momentos with MDS on them that philip was hoping to pass down to mayer. so the task of finding a "d" name began....dalton, duncan, davi, dean, dane...and the list went on. unfortunately this one was going to wait. at least we had a first name.

sunday night was the bachelorette finale and sweet tamar came to watch with me. she also brought me tons of magazines...she knows me too well. sadly i missed a photo op on her visit...

monday morning we got ready in our thing 1 and thing 2 shirts in preparation for asher's arrival after school...

mr. mayer

jen came to visit after she got back from a trip out of town...

and rabbi noam blessed us with his prescense and lovely words of prayers. he is a baby whisperer....

mayer and i took a nap in the afternoon before big brother arrived. all he wanted to do was nap and snuggle the first 36-72 hours. he never really latched on till about 48 hours after his delivery and even then i was worried he wasnt getting it.

less than 36 hours post delivery....

asher arrived after school and got into bed with mayer and i to snuggle

and cheese for photos....

in our thing 1 and thing 2 shirts

daddy snapped a few cuties of mayer's feet

he has Bass toes and fingers. VERY VERY long.

later that night jen came back with jason and dinner from pio pio.. yum yum yum

i opted to stay an extra night. since i delivered so close to midnight they gave me the option to stay and i took them up on it. especially with the lack of desire to nurse on mayers part i wanted to make sure things were good to go and that i could get another visit in with the lactation consultant. because mayer was so sleepy i pumped a little each morning to try to help stimulate my body and get my milk to come in. i had rusty pipes. pretty much my capillaries along my milk ducts bursted causing blood to get into my colostrum. this made for an upset baby tummy and a panicked mommy when my pumped colostrum looked rusty red. all normal and as expected didn't pose any further problems. just a gassy baby

that morning the birth certificate harassed us until we finalized his name.

we decided on Davi as his middle name (pronounced Dah-vi)...but i am sure many will pronounce it as davey... and that is fine too.

and here he is

mayer davi schreibman

smushy face

this reminds me of a photo we took with asher

before we were discharged we got camera happy

he has this cute curled ear just like my sister did

and then it was time for us to go.....

ready and waiting downstairs at the hospital for daddy to pick us up

im home....welcome to the world mr mayer davi schreibman...

Part 1: Birth Story

Baby Brother (which is what he was referred to till 36 hours after his birth when we finally decided on a name) decided he wanted to be just like his big brother. 2 days late. Some said my due date was the 19th, others the 21st. After the 19th I begin every attempt to evict the baby from my body. I had already been off of work for a week (by choice between exhaustion and sickness) and I was ready to have this baby. Friday night Asher spent the night at Nana and Poppy's "just in case". NOTHING. Saturday we decided to take a stroll on the greenway, just us. I cant tell you the last time we did something like that. It was so nice. I use that term lightly because I was pretty uncomfortable but dead set that I was going to walk this baby out of me, literally. We walked about two miles. Nothing major. Then we headed over to trader joe's for a few things and off to earth fare for raspberry tea and primrose oil. Both are recommended to kick start labor. I drank about 5 cups of raspberry tea that day and took 2 primrose oil pills. I also took a nice nap after our morning excursion, pumped to stimulate contractions (yes nipple stimulation is supposed to bring on labor) etc. By 4 pm I was still pregnant. We decided since I was feeling fine that we would meet up with my parents at their pool so we could see Asher and decide the plan for that night. As we approached their neighborhood the sky fell out in a horrible storm. They had to run for safety into the clubhouse and we waited out the storm in the car. After the sky cleared we decided swimming was not going to happen and dinner time was approaching. We headed to an Italian restaurant near their house where we ate Pizza, Chicken Parm, Salad and Garlic Knots. By 7:30 we were headed home...just the two of us. We decided that Asher should spend the night again with nana and poppy just in case all of my herbal remedies worked....

Once we got home I laid in bed and began working on the invitation for the Bris. I knew it would take time so I wanted to set it up in advance with the email addresses. I distinctly remember feeling and hearing a pop noise around 8:15. Philip was downstairs studying (for his MBA classes) and I called him on his cell to tell him. Nothing happened other than this weird noise and feeling. About 5 minutes later i moved and i felt the gush. i knew my water had broken. i sat up and there was a puddle of water and my boxers were soaked. i googled online "water break" and found that it should smell like bleach. of course since i had been sick my sense of smell was compromised but i could still tell it had that same odor. i called down to philip and the contractions began to come fast. 2-4 minutes apart lasting 45 sec- 90 sec. i timed them on my phone with an app i had bought earlier that day. i knew this was stage 3 of labor already. i called into the dr's line, got a call back from the nurse, then a call back from the hospital to tell me that the midwife was in a delivery, but to go ahead and come on down to the hospital. philip was frantically packing things up into the car. by this time the contractions were getting stronger, but i could still talk through them. i alerted our moms it was game time and they both packed up and met us at the hospital.

we arrived at the hospital and checked in at 10:15 pm. it was a full house. unfortunately there were so many patients i didnt get to use the family birthing room we had hoped to use, however i still got a huge room with a whirlpool tub and could have the delivery that i wanted, just not with a platform bed...instead it was a hospital gurney. by this point it was hard to talk through my contractions

i put on my special gown and they strapped me to the monitors for 20 minutes of monitoring and information gathering. the midwife on call was still in a delivery. i believe her third of the evening. i also found out that after i called in two more midwife patients called in and were right behind me on their way to the hospital to have their babies... BUSY. while they were monitoring me philip filled up the tub for me. after they removed the monitors i got my bathing suit top on, my ipod in my ears and got into the tub. i was able to labor in the tub for about 30 minutes... listening to my birthing cd's, breathing through each contraction while philip was putting pressure on my lower back. instead of laying in the tub i got on all fours and held myself up on a ledge in the tub with my arms allowing my stomach to hang down into the water. between the water and the position it took a lot of the edge off the contractions which were now coming very strong and very fast. i finally felt the urge to push and had to get out of the tub. i was shaking all over (i was in transition) my body while attempting to dry off, get my bathing suit off and put my gown back on. i finally made it back into the bed and attempted to breathe through contractions on my side. we discussed laboring and delivering on my side to minimize tearing, but i couldnt get comfortable on my side. the urge to push came on strong. the nurse checked me and i was 9 cm...so close! she said that after she checked me i would go to 10 cm most likely from being checked....and i did. the midwife was still finishing up another delivery. they mentioned bringing in the dr on call to assist since they were unsure if the midwife was going to make it....this was moving fast. they allowed me to do two test pushes...i was ready. in walked the midwife apologizing and all i remembering saying was "im ready, lets go!" after less than 10 minutes of pushing, lots of hollering "help", grunting and sensations that can only be described as the "ring of fire"....out came our BIG boy at 11:50 PM. i remember every single sensation and feeling from his delivery. it was amazing. the most unbelieveable feeling came with his full exit and the gush that followed it.

i commited myself to delivering him without drugs, without any intervention. no iv on admission. my birth plan was granola. there is no denying it. for me this was just as mental as it was physical. my body was so traumatized with asher's delivery that i wanted to take this situation into my own hands, and that i did. the sense of accomplishment that i was able to birth this life into this world, on my own, and feel every single sensation associated with it took my breath away. god was watching over me.

the tears strolling down philips face, the excitement in the room, his first cries and his warm skin against mine. some of the best things in life at that very moment.

its amazing to think that less than 4 hours after my water broke i delivered this baby... i was only in the hospital 90 minutes prior to delivery. if you wouldve asked me my ideal birth prior to delivery day i would've told you this exact story. FAST with a chance to labor in the tub. my prayers were answered.

on the evening of saturday, july 21, 2012 at 11:50 pm we were so very blessed with a big ( 8 lbs, 9 oz, 21 inches ) baby boy. i still cant believe how big this baby was. i swore in the last month of my pregnancy my stomach was significantly larger than last time, but they said he would be average sized, probably just like asher. clearly that was not the case. asher was 7 lbs, 4 oz. thankfully i didnt tear as badly with this delivery as i did with asher. 1st degree superficial tear. getting stitched up without an epidural was definitely different and painful. yikes. however i was thankful that my tear was minimal compared to last time. i knew i could handle any recovery after what i had been through with asher and a drug free birth this pregnancy...

after the umbilical cord stopped pulsing philip got to cut it!

and i began to attempt to nurse while we all celebrated together...

philip presented me with a lovely present...earrings. one for each ear to represent our two boys. they were gorgeous and i have not taken them off since that day! i guess i will need to eventually to clean them.

daddy and his pride and joy

after an hour and a half our parents kissed us goodbye to head home for a decent nights sleep (it was already past 1 am) and they knew the next few days would be busy. we headed to our new room with a stop at the nursery to drop the little man off. upon arrival the nursery was PACKED full. they measured him for the first time and we opted to skip the bath since it was packed and they were busy. they offered to come bathe him in the room the next morning prior to big brother asher's arrival.

when we arrived in the nursery i heard the song "Your body is a wonderland" by John Mayer playing on the radio. foreshadowing....i think yes.

his toes and fingers were so long, just like mommy...

we finally arrived in our new home for the next few days and both tried to settle down to catch some sleep. we knew they would be bringing him in to me shortly to nurse. we requested that they only bring him if he wakes or was crying. by 6 am our little man arrived in the room. he was super sleepy the first 36 hours, never latched and really only wanted to sleep and/or be held.

they bathed him in the room and we dressed him anxiously awaiting asher's arrival to meet his big brother. i was able to face time with asher early that morning so he could see his baby brother before coming in to the hospital. he was so excited that he wanted to go right then and there! asher arrived around 10 am and immediately wanted to meet him, kiss him and hold him. and just as any big brother should, he did!!